


tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us

by vivahate



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, because they're finally Talking and it's A Lot, there are tears, there's lots of emotional hurt okay namely crowley's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 03:22:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20167327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivahate/pseuds/vivahate
Summary: “I don’t want to say anything.” Crowley said, and the wounded thing inside his chest ached significantly more as he proceeded to say many things that he’d left festering for far too long. “I want – I want it all to be in the past. I don’t want to keep thinking about where we’d be right now if the world didn’t almost end and what you’d do if someone from either of our sides decided to show up one day-”“We’d still be together.” Aziraphale interrupted and Crowley snapped his mouth shut so quickly, the angel feared for the state of his teeth.





	tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us

Crowley had not planned to say anything. He honestly had not.

In fact, he’d buried any lingering bitterness and pain over what had transpired during Armagedon’t as deeply as possible, not once allowing his traitorous mind to stray that particular route.

And all that effort had paid off, of course!

A year had passed already, and he was doing brilliantly. He was _married_ to Aziraphale to begin with - had been proposed to by said angel, in fact. And the only causes of worry he had these days were putting his plants to rights in order to have them safely moved to their new place at South Downs, and trying not to appear (annoyingly) too chuffed whenever he mentioned his lovely husband who ran a bookshop. Which he did often. To anyone who would lend a hearing ear.

And yes, alright, he did take immense pleasure from putting his happy married life on display, but in his defense - who _wouldn’t, _when he had the love of the one person he’d coveted for thousands of years.

All in all, everything had been going splendidly until Aziraphale had gone and suggested they paid a visit to Anathema and Newt who were about to tie the knot themselves, effectively not only ruining Crowley’s undefectible good mood but also giving rise to a storm of questions and doubts that Crowley had no control over.

Aziraphale had to have gone and ruined it all by lecturing the newly engaged couple on the importance of _communication_ and _speaking honestly_ and _leaving no lingering resentments_ _in the dark if you are to make your relationship work_, and it all had put the demon to thought, which frankly had never ended well for him.

Oh, darn it all to hell.

“It’s too hot to have tea outside, I’ll set the table here.” Newt said, scurrying off to the kitchen. Anathema gazed fondly after him before getting up to procure the best china for the occasion.

“I still can’t believe you never thought to tell us before eloping so suddenly.” Anathema said without heat, the corner of her mouth pulling into a teasing grin. “We would’ve sent a wedding present. Or a congratulatory note at the very least. Anyhow, it is lovely to see you doing so well.”

“It is lovely.” Crowley drawled after being quiet for a long while, and he looked straight at Aziraphale, his face a mixture of a plea and a dare as he said, “Quite surprising for hereditary enemies such as ourselves to be involved in the affairs of love, isn’t it, angel?”

The entire room went silent. No one moved, including Newt who in the wake of his return, had frozen upon reading the near palpable tension of the room, plates and biscuits in hands. Crowley, too, was frozen, eyes wide with shock at what he’d said and his hands began to pat around him anxiously, feeling around for his glasses – _damn it_! He’d opted to leave them in the Bentley, hadn’t he. So used as he’d got to biding without them in the angel’s presence. And their human friends, well, they were aware of Crowley’s essence well enough.

“Changed my mind.” Newt said in a strangled voice, “Think we’ll have the tea outside.” And strode over to stir his fiancée who admittedly looked more baffled than anything to the direction of the door.

For so long Crowley had crept around their fall-out and Aziraphale had enabled him, never pushing, never asking. So to have Crowley hurl the angel’s own hurtful words back at him now, must have left Aziraphale quite winded for even through his haze of shock Crowley was sure he saw Aziraphale cringe when the words fell from his lips. 

As Aziraphale rose to his feet and cautiously made his way over to Crowley, the demon seemed to shrink more and more in his seat, having nowhere to hide anymore.

“I didn’t want to talk about this.” Crowley blurted out, fists tight in his lap. “Not now and – not _here_. I know why you said the things you said that day, but – but then you went and put this _idea_ in my head and I couldn’t let it go-“

“Peace, my love.” Aziraphale murmured soothingly as he knelt before him. He made an aborted gesture to reach for Crowley’s hand, but then dropped his hand at the last moment, as if thinking his touch might not be welcome at the moment. Crowley’s heart hurt at the sight but he did not reach for Aziraphale in return. “I did say it all for your sake. Although, I must admit, I didn’t expect my words to have the desired effect.”

“How….” Crowley asked, trailing off at the knowing look on the angel’s face. Crowley allowed the surprise he felt to show on his face. “You’ve been expecting this. For me to say this.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale admitted, sheepish. “For quite some time now, actually. I didn’t push neither the engagement nor the trip for myself, though I wanted nothing more than to have you by my side. Officially, that is. But I did push the whole affair for your sake…because you were hurting and I did not want you to be uncertain of what place you held in my heart any longer.”

Crowley made a series of unintelligible noises in his outrage before gathering his wits enough to start forming proper sentences again.

“Don’t be ssstupid! It’s not your love I doubt. _Never_ that. I would not have agreed to marry you if I did.” Crowley said fiercely, indignation making his words come out in a hiss. He seemed to catch himself, minute apprehension passing over his features as his gaze flicked down to the exquisite titanium ring hugging his finger. His serpentine eyes softened. He tenderly stroked his thumb along the cherished item. “I don’t need a ring or a house at the countryside to remind me that you love me. These are lovely gestures, but-”

“And I’m happy to have given them to you, Crowley.” Aziraphale cut in, and G- Sa- _Someone_, six thousand years of knowing the angel and Crowley still had not gotten used to how his name alone always ended up sounding like a sweet endearment on Aziraphale’s tongue. “For ever since our arrival, there has not been an instance when I looked at you and you weren’t touching the ring. Nor has your mind been occupied with anything but the preparations for our moving. I am _happy_ that they give you comfort and I have tried giving you time but I cannot stand seeing my husband suffer in silence any longer.”

If possible Crowley tensed even more, embarrassment and vulnerability at being so easily discovered making him defensive, angry and afraid.

“What are you saying, angel?” He asked slowly, tentative and controlled, mindful not to let his serpentine voice take over.

Aziraphale didn’t seem to be in a hurry to answer, however, as absorbed as he looked to be in pondering the question, all the while playing with the ring on his own finger.

In that moment Crowley didn’t even remember who had started this conversation, having lost almost all awareness of his surroundings after Aziraphale admitted to being privy to the worst of the doubts and fears that had been plaguing Crowley’s mind. He wished that he’d never said anything at all, that they were still having tea and listening to the achingly human recollections of Anathema and Newt’s summer trip.

When Aziraphale finally spoke he did so after a resigned sigh and an aborted gesture to rub at this temples. Even through the fog of anxiety clouding Crowley’s mind, the movement didn’t escape him and he was suddenly reminded of how it was equally, if not more difficult for the angel to voice his feelings, long as he’d gone repressing them under Heaven’s watchful eye.

“I’m afraid I did you a great disservice, my dearest.” Aziraphale said, pained and Crowley desperately scrambled to catch up. “I didn’t give you the chance to be properly angry with me for how cruel I’d been to you that day, and every time I’d let fear get the best of my judgment before that. I simply hoped to make it up to you by – by _showing_ you how much you mean to me. I see now how much pain my silence has caused you.”

_What on Earth, _thought Crowley in total bewilderment.

“Ngk?” he asked intelligently, and Aziraphale’s tender gaze softened impossibly more as he huffed in fond exasperation. Crowley’s minute reprieve must’ve given him enough nerve to finally reach out and take the stunned demon’s hands in his and bend down to press a soft kiss to the back of each one. Under normal circumstances Crowley would have certainly felt overwhelmed to tears from the tenderness of the act, but as it was his mind was reeling with a thousand questions and even more realizations.

“What I mean is,” the angel continued, undeterred. “Your heart is mine to take care of. Just as mine is yours. Just as you’ve been taking care of it for so long now. And I’ll have the truths in your heart for… I can only hope to begin making proper amends for all the hurts I’ve caused you.”

Crowley could not feel what his face was doing but he knew that he’d never wished to be wearing his sunglasses more than in that moment. How was he even supposed to react to _that_. It was one thing to learn to be intimate with the person you’ve been in love with for millenia, and an entirely different matter to be known so intimately. The sheer embarrassment of it! The terror!

“They are not pretty truths.” Crowley warned, voice laced with apprehension. They’d finally got there. Finally moved past the conditionings that had kept them apart for so long. Crowley would _not_ be the reason that drove Aziraphale away again.

“And I will have every last one of them.” Aziraphale said, eyes sweet but serious and with an encouraging squeeze to Crowley’s hands he let go, giving the demon space. “As much as you’re willing to give me.”

Crowley’s jaw clenched. There’s only so much deliberating he could do before he was bound to give in to his impulsive nature. Well, then.

“I don’t want to say anything.” Crowley said, and the wounded thing inside his chest ached significantly more as he proceeded to say many things that he’d left festering for far too long. “I want – I want it all to be in the past. I don’t want to keep thinking about where we’d be right now if the world didn’t almost end and what you’d do if someone from either of our sides decided to show up one day-”

“We’d still be together.” Aziraphale interrupted and Crowley snapped his mouth shut so quickly, the angel feared for the state of his teeth. “We’d still be together, on _our_ side. I wouldn’t bear to be parted from you in any scenario. Surely you must know that my dear-”

“Was I your dear anything when you denied our friendship?” Crowley hissed and immediately felt wretched for asking such a thing at the way Aziraphale gasped as if struck. But the dams had been broken and in that moment it didn’t matter that Crowley had always known the angel well enough to be able to read between the lines and discern the things he actually meant from outright lies. None of it mattered then, because, “You – even at the end of the world you wouldn’t admit out loud what you really thought of me. I’ve always accepted your fears and precautions, but _six thousand years_, Aziraphale!“

“I was wrong,” Aziraphale said, anguish showing on his face and the only reason he seemed to keep himself collected, Crowley suspected, through the fog of pain clouding his mind, was his determination to hear Crowley out. To do _right_ by Crowley. He wondered, a bit cynically, if the angel regretted it now. “I was blinded by fear. Fear for _you_, above everything. And that, that is no excuse as I’d done nothing to justify my intentions. I’d never dared to hope you’d reciprocate even a fraction of my feelings for you.”

“Because I’d not been clear enough on how I felt, or because I was a lowly demon unable to feel love at all?” Crowley asked sharply, referring pointedly to a very specific conversation in Taddfield. Tears had begun to gather in the demon’s eyes about the same time some began to slide down the angel’s face. Crowley felt simultaneously wretched and apologetic for uttering these words of poison, but they had been stewing in his head for long enough.

“Because you’re the dearest thing in the entire universe to me. And I couldn’t stand the possibility of ever losing your company.” Aziraphale said, voice pleading but so achingly honest and deeply moved Crowley wondered which one of them was heartsick at the moment.

The angel’s words seemed to settle Crowley for a moment, and the Crowley who had rescued Aziraphale from sure execution in Paris, and the Crowley who had turned up in a church of all places to save Aziraphale (and his precious books) from nazis, was right there standing in front of the angel. Ever grateful and selfish for Aziraphale’s love and attention. Things that were already his to take and readily offered by Aziraphale _always_. His husband. His one. For a moment, it was all there.

Then in a flash it was all gone, and the wounded animal of Crowley’s heart that had to bear too many rejections was there instead, even more uncontrollable and hurting than before. Crowley thought wildly that it was a good thing he was sitting down and the angel was still perched on the floor, for he was sure even Aziraphale would have felt the need to brace himself for the words he hurled next.

“I could’ve, maybe, given you up if there had been someone else you cared for,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale stopped breathing. And possibly some other human body functions. “Another angel or – or a human, even, but I was competing with your loyalty to heaven and I _never_ judged you for that, angel. I knew why you always kept your distance but that day you – you pushed me aside and you wouldn’t explain anything and you _lied_ to my face repeatedly. Even when we started our arrangement I was at least someone to you, albeit just a wily serpent you expected the absolute worst from, but that day you wouldn’t even confide in me anymore or let me save us if worse came to worst and I felt like a_ no one.”_

The unexpected tight hold on his hands almost had the demon jerk back in surprise if not for Aziraphale’s face, heartbroken and frantic with worry, immediately swimming into his sight.

“It couldn’t be further from the truth!” Aziraphale cried, desperate now, “My love, how can you even think such things, when you matter more to me than any creature, any human, any phenomenon on this or any other planet.”

“You’re saying it _now_, when there’s no threat of either heaven or hell coming for us, but what if one day someone turned up and you changed your mind? I don’t – I can’t -” Crowley said, voice hitching with every word, and hands flying to clutch at his hair. “I couldn’t bear it if you pushed me away again. Not after everything that happened, not after finally having your love. I _couldn’t_. It would _kill_ me, Aziraphale.”

Crowley finished with an awful choked out sob, eyes widening suddenly, and he slapped a hand over his mouth as if it would somehow take back the things he’d said. Tears were rolling unbidden down his cheeks now and Crowley couldn’t bring himself to look at Aziraphale. He couldn’t. He didn’t even want to guess what his face was doing.

Crowley panicked.

“Forget what I just said. Actually, scratch that – Forget this whole conversation ever happened.” He said, shaking all over, as the terrible thought that he and Aziraphale’s short marriage might not survive this conversation, wracked through his entire body. “I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in the whole antichrist business anyway. Should’ve – should’ve figured something out on my own. Shouldn’t have been so bloody _stupid_ as to drag you into this mess and have your lot turn their backs on you -“

Aziraphale did not let him go on for another moment, immediately enveloping him in his arms and Crowley let out another loud sob, of relief this time as his angel held him gently but so closely that not an atom could fit between them.

“_Don’t you_ _dare_.” Aziraphale said, voice steely and yet tight as if it was taking every ounce of power in him to not fall apart. He sounded positively wrecked. “You may shout at me, you may avoid me for the next century, you may despise me, but you may _not_ put the blame on my beloved. I won’t hear another word of this. Don’t you _dare_, Crowley.”

  
And that served as the breaking point of the last thread of control Crowley had left.

Crowley held onto Aziraphale with a desperation that might have surprised both of them in any other situation, burying his face into Aziraphale’s collar and weeping, his chest heaving with the force of his harsh breaths. He slid out of his seat, and Aziraphale caught him easily, clutching at him in return. Crowley allowed himself to be held and seemed to recover his senses only for a moment as he felt something wet soaking his hair, and came to the gut-wrenching realization that those were Aziraphale’s tears.

“I was wrong.” Aziraphale repeated as he began stroking a hand soothingly through Crowley’s hair, trying to ground the other even as tears continued to splash down his own face. “So wrong, Crowley. When I finally saw heaven for what it truly is, you were gone already and I could – I could only hope that you were somewhere safe, that at least you’d not have to bear witness to the end times. But you _weren’t_, you wonderfully loyal, brave, foolish creature. Oh truly the most beloved thing I’ve ever had. You’re the only one for me, Crowley. There cannot ever be another. Angel or human or demon – you’re my one.” Aziraphale choked out, obviously still not used to expressing his feelings so meaningfully and with intention and yet determined to follow through till the end. “My dear, the look on your face when I pushed you away … the memory of it will haunt me forever. And justly so, for the great pain I inflicted upon you, but I would _not_ have your life on the line, I would not have you get more intermingled in the affairs of hell, not if I could do something about it.” Aziraphale paused minutely to press a lingering kiss to Crowley’s temple, mouthing the rest of his words there. “I’m sorry. Crowley, darling, I’m _so sorry_.”

Crowley shivered, overwhelmed, and tightened his grip on the angel, but could not make himself stop his terrible weeping. Holding onto Aziraphale was the only thing he seemed to be capable of at the moment, and the angel, in turn, held on just as tightly, resolved to drift this tide out by his husband’s side.

* * *

_Please let this have eased his heart_, Aziraphale thought, not so much in prayer as much as a precious entreaty plucked from the depths of his soul in address to anyone who would care to receive it. _He need not forgive me quite yet, just let him make peace with the past. _

Aziraphale stopped abruptly in the middle of preparing tea to take a sharp breath that he had no need of in order to survive.

_Let him still want my love at the end of all of this._

As if summoned by the trail of his thoughts, said demon sauntered into the kitchen, immediately masking his worried expression and the weariness that hung about him like second skin the moment his eyes caught Aziraphale’s.

They looked at each other for a beat, two, until Aziraphale held his hand out for Crowley, intention clear on his face, and Crowley rushed to take it, promptly closing the distance between them.

“You needn’t have come, love. I was just about to bring the tea to you. You should rest.” Aziraphale murmured, not daring to raise his voice as if any misplaced loud noise might have shattered the tranquility of the scene. He leaned in to press a tender kiss to Crowley’s shoulder and the demon let out a sigh, tension seeping from his tired form as he fit himself in the angel’s arms.

He looked horrible. Red-rimmed eyes and disheveled hair and clothes.

Aziraphale looked no better.

“’s fine.” Crowley drawled, tightening his grasp on Aziraphale’s shoulders. “I’d rather be with you.”

And Aziraphale felt no differently.

Encouraged by the words, Aziraphale allowed a small sigh of contentment to escape him.

If he could still lend comfort and strength to his love, _his Crowley_.

Then they would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for making it to the end!
> 
> the title of this story is a line from one of my favourite poems, richard siken's "scheherazade" from his book "crush". do check his works out if they've SOMEHOW escaped you till now. 
> 
> there are so many gomens fic Ideas brewing in my head and now that i finally have some time to write i intend to get to all of them. and since i've grown to love these characters fiercely, i promise my next work won't be anywhere near this angsty. 
> 
> hope you enjoyed reading this! do leave kudos or a comment if you feel inclined as those never fail to boost my mood and give me the incentive to write more. 
> 
> you can join me in my daily GO breakdowns on tumblr at @shakespears.
> 
> thank you and much love! xxx


End file.
